Aboard the Rampion
by Ecstatically Gray
Summary: The progression of all our favorite relationships aboard the 214 Rampion, Class 11.3 cargo ship. Three-shot.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi people of the TLC fandom! I know we're all waiting very patiently for Fairest so here's a little something to help with the wait. Basically, I reread Cress and my feelings were going a bit haywire. This story is a three-shot and the first one is about Kaider! Chapter two and chapter three will be Cresswell and Wolflet respectively. Cheers!**

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Kai made another circuit around the spaceship, earning a curious look from Cress, a rather indifferent gaze from Wolf and a blind stare from Captain Thorne. Darla the ship hummed obligingly underneath his feet and Iko the escort-droid still refused to be seen until all her wiring was safely back inside her system. On his third round around the cockpit, Cress pocked her head out the door. She looked starkly different from the first time he had seen her, just the day before. She had abandoned the large poufy dress she had been wearing and traded it for a set of military uniform that hung limply from her small frame.

"Your Majesty?" she asked hesitantly. "Is something wrong?"

Kai halted mid-step and gave Cress a very unconvincing smile. "No, everything's alright, thank you."

He had relatively gotten used to the odd collection of the ship's residents but still, there was a distance between him and them that came with the territory of being the emperor. He didn't exactly know how to talk to them considering one of them was a thief he had ordered to be contained explicitly and another one was a human-wolf hybrid who had been programmed specially to kill.

Cress gave him an unconvinced nod of the head and was about to head back to her seat beside the blind Captain when Kai suddenly stopped her. "Umm…there is one thing." he said, suddenly unsure. "Would you happen to know where Cinder is?"

Cress blinked at him with her large eyes before her lips curved in a barely suppressed grin. "You should check the Control Room." she said, smiling at him kindly. "I think you'll find her there."

"Thanks." he said, returning her smile. Suffice to say, after Cinder, Cress was the one members of the crew that he hadn't been instantly opposed to.

"My pleasure." she said, giving him a mock curtsey and disappearing back inside the cockpit.

It didn't take much time to locate the Control Room and he chided himself when he found himself stopping just outside the door, his heartbeat suddenly accelerating in his chest. Inhaling a quick breath, he turned the doorknob and entered the barely lit room that thrummed with the loud roaring of the ship's engine. Crouched conspicuously in a dark corner was a slim figure, knees tucked to her chest, her head resting tiredly on her arms. He had seen how much the attack on Farafrah had affected her and even though she had gathered the crew a few hours ago to coordinate a plan, he knew that she was still shaken up.

Cinder looked up when he entered and then immediately stood up, hastily composing her expression that seemed to border somewhat between devastated and miserable. His heart crumpled and he took a few hesitant steps forwards, suddenly not sure why he was there in the first place. He realized, belatedly, that the urge to go see her was entirely based on his need to just be around her and nothing else.

"A bit loud, don't you think?" he asked as she came over to stand with him at the door. "What are you doing in here?"

She gave him a tired smile, still on the shy side with her head tilted slightly downwards, hands almost perpetually wringing together. He was still surprising himself with how much he liked her, all metal and human and Lunar. "I like the noise." she said, stepping out of the room and closing the door behind them. "It helps me not think."

They stood in the dimly lit hallway, his eyes judging her warily, trying to interpret her mood. "Couldn't you do that with your netfeed?" he asked curiously. "Create a loud static noise or something?"

"Yeah." She screwed her nose in a way that he found absolutely adorable. "But then the noise would be in my brain instead of my ears."

If he thought too much about it, he would wonder if there was a difference but for now her words made sense. He nodded emphatically and they both walked a little further down the hallway. The pallid lighting shown down on her and illuminated the circles underneath her eyes and he noticed for the first time how tired she looked. Her shoulders sagged as if burdened by actual physical weight and her brown eyes, that had haunted his dreams for so long, looked faded and dull, lacking their normal glint of sarcasm. He realized that the way she looked right now must have been what he looked like when he was still the acting emperor, burdened by things so far out of his control that it was only a matter of time before he crumbled underneath the his responsibilities.

"Hey," he said unsurely, "Are you alright?"

She started a little as if she had forgotten that he was beside her in the first place and then glanced up at him. "Yes. Just a bit tired, is all.

Kai rubbed his neck, "You sure look like it."

She gave him a wry smile, "Planning to dethrone a queen would do that to you."

His lips lifted in a smile, an action that almost seemed entirely new considering how many times he had smiled in the past year. And even when he had smiled, it had mostly been in her presence anyway. He had thought that her lying to him and kidnapping him and being an international criminal would have changed things but apparently not.

"Can I ask you something?" she said suddenly, biting worriedly on her lower lip. In a silent agreement, they started to walk along the constricted hallway, shoulder to shoulder, and he nodded in affirmation. The words poured out of her rapidly like whatever she wanted to talk about, she had been thinking about it for a long time. "How…how did you do it? You know, rule an entire country? Having the fate of billions of people resting on your shoulders?"

It wasn't exactly the question he had been expecting but he couldn't say that he was surprised. For the first time in his life, someone understood what it was like to be in his place. To hold the lives of billions of peoples in his bare hands, to see thousands of his own people parish and be able to do absolutely nothing about it. He felt that respite again, that tugged at his chest and freed him a little, the respite of sharing his burden with someone else. Someone who understood.

"It's never been easy." he said, taking a long sigh and loosening the collar of his shirt. He was still wearing his clothes form yesterday and he couldn't say that he was too fond of them. "Knowing that my each and every decision would affect billions of people. But I was trained to be the emperor since I was a toddler. I knew that one day the Commonwealth would be mine to rule." He paused a little. A small crack opened up in the deluge of feelings he usually kept to himself and all his thoughts threatened to come pouring out all at once. He contained them with a little difficulty. "I just didn't expect the day to come so soon, you know? And have to deal with Levana on top of it."

She nodded, looking at her feet instead on him, deep in thought. "But how do you know?" she asked, "How do you know that what you were doing is right for your people? That somebody isn't going to suffer just because you took a left instead of a right?"

"I don't." he said simply. "Of course I had an entire board of advisors to answer to but I never exactly knew that what I was doing was the right thing. One thing I've learned during the time I've been emperor is that you've got to trust your instincts and go with it."

She nodded again, still somewhere else inside her head. He crumbled a little from the inside when his mind drifted back to the attacks spreading across Earth, Levana's inhuman army skittering to every corner of the globe and sucking the land dry like leaches. And then his attention drifted back to Cinder. To Princess Selene. He had first started to like her because she was so true and normal but she had never been normal to begin with, had she?

"Well, at least I don't have a board of advisors to answer to." she said, giving him a lopsided smile, like she was trying to make light of her situation. "But I still have my trusty crew."

"And you have good instincts." he said, despite himself. "Even if it involves putting your trust on a walking time bomb and an international thief."

She seemed amused by his comment. "Do my good instincts involve breaking out of prison and kidnapping the emperor?"

He winced, reaching a hand to rub the back of his neck. "I guess not. But considering the fact that I might have been married to Levana right now if it weren't for you, I'm willing to give you that one."

"So you finally agree then." she said, looking pleased. "That kidnapping you was the right way to go about it."

"It might have helped to mention that you were the lost princess before you drugged me." he said. "I would have been a much more compliant hostage then." He wasn't entirely sure if he still approved of the kidnapping but as long as there was even the slightest hope of defeating Levana without marrying her, he was all for it.

She smirked. "Where would have been the fun in that?"

He chuckled lightly and realized that both of them had stopped walking, leaning against one of the walls of the hallway instead. She slid against the wall and settled on the cool floor of the spaceship. He didn't think twice before taking a seat beside her, leaning his head back and feeling slight vibrations of the engine through the walls. He hesitated and then said, "Don't doubt yourself, okay? Every person on this ship is willing to follow your led." His throat was a little dry when he said, "Including me."

His words seemed to have much the same effect of her. "An emperor willing to follow a princess." she mumbled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear -a nervous tick, he had noticed. "You're changing the lines of hierarchy."

"I've always considered myself a revolutionary." he joked with a small smile. After all that had been happening on Earth, it felt good to just sit with her and talk and pretend for a moment that everything was normal. He relaxed against the wall a little more and turned his face in her direction. "I mean it, you know. I know I wasn't too keen on your idea before but I'm willing to do everything I can if you think this will work. For my people." He paused, weighing his words. "And yours."

She stiffened at his words like somebody had dumped a bucket of ice over her head. "They're not my people." she said quickly, referring to the Lunars, the majority of whom still had no idea she even existed. Then, she wilted in front of his eyes. "I might be Lunar but they'll never be my people."

"Of course they will be." he reassured her, even though his own doubts were tinkling in through the walls of his brain. When he saw the despondency in her expression, he had an almost insatiable urge to reach forwards and touch some part of her, her hair, her hands. "Once they know who you are, that you're still alive, they will do everything to restore to the rightful line of succession."

"I don't want to be a queen, Kai." she said, the words rushing out of her in one quick release. She looked at him with guilt and remorse and shame, as if her confession somehow negated the purpose of their whole mission. "Even if this somehow works, I don't want to stay on Luna, I don't want to rule a country." Her face crumpled, brown eyes looking at him almost imploringly. "I wasn't raised to be a ruler, not like you anyway. All I ever wanted was to be free and now I'm fighting for the most binding role of all."

Her eyes flickered to her lap and her hand trembled slightly. The metal one remained unnaturally composed even as a small shudder passed through the rest of her body. She lowered her head and strands of hair fell across her face, hiding her profile from him. He let the words hang between them for a while before he reached forward and took her metal hand, silently slipping his fingers through hers. She started, as if she was about to retract her hand on instinct but he held on to it, tugging on it until she met his eyes. The little shyness he had remaining completely evaporated in the wake of her words. "You don't have to fight for Luna." he told her seriously, rubbing a thumb across the cool metal of her hand. "You can fight for Earth, you can fight to rid this world of Levana. You can fight for your friends."

She nodded, swallowed the lump in her throat and then said, "You know the day I crashed your ball to warn you about Levana?" He nodded and she swallowed again. "I was going to run away that day. I had been working on a car; I found it in a scrapyard –a leftover from the second era. I fixed it until it was working and I was going to run away that night, maybe out of the country. Africa, Europe, who knows? But then, I got Cress's message and I knew that I had to warn you, that I had to do something." She shook her head a little. "I know I would probably make the same choice all over again but I can't help but wonder..."

He felt a burning sensation at his throat and a brighter, more scorching one at his heart. He had never known what she had sacrificed to help him that day. If she hadn't come to warn him, she would probably somewhere far away right now, living a relatively harmless life, free from everything the world had thrown at her from such an early age. And he would be stuck deep inside Levana's poisonous clutches, probably still endangering the entirety of the Earthen Union.

As he looked at her and she waited a little nervously for an answer, he realized that he had never liked her because of her normality anyway. It was something else; he couldn't pinpoint it exactly, maybe it was just a combination of everything about her, maybe it was one specific thing. But he knew with a sudden clarity that he never should have doubted her. Never should have looked at her and felt anything but what he was feeling right now. He squeezed her hand –as much as he could squeeze a metal hand anyway- and said, earnestly, "I'm glad you decided to not go."

She smiled, true and sincere. "Me too. Even though I faced criminal charges. And was labelled one of the most dangerous fugitives on the Earth. And had the military chase me to another continent."

"Not my fault." he said even though he was smiling too. He tugged her closer and the distance between them halved. He felt a delicious tingle running through his spine at their close proximity.

"It's kind of flattering now that you think about it." she said. "And I already have a reputation. It might as well prove useful one of these days."

"One of these days." he echoed. He couldn't help himself after that. He leaned over, cupped her face in his hands and pressed his lips against hers. This kiss wasn't like their previous ones. One had been a desperate attempt on Cinder's part to dissuade Levana. The second had been ruined about the horrible news about the attack on Earth. For once, he wanted to kiss her without premise, without interruption. And he did just that, his lips moving against hers slowly, tasting, touching, exploring something that hadn't gotten a chance to be explored before. She sucked in a small breath before her arms circled his neck and her hands entangled themselves in his hair; he pulled her closer until she was practically in his lap. He liked how she felt; how her kisses were almost timid, how her metal hand felt against his scalp, how the world seemed to dissolve around them, like the galaxies surrounding their spaceship were exploding and imploding and dissolving into stardust.

When they parted, he didn't let her move away, taking the time instead to observe her more closely. Some part of his mind still couldn't believe that it was her sitting in front of him right now. For so long, she had been a ghost; a tantalizing shimmering mirage that wandered in his dreams and floated in his days like a perpetual shadow. Her mysteries had haunted him for weeks until he had begun to piece her together puzzle by puzzle, all the while praying and hoping that she somehow managed to escape the entirety of the country's military that he had set on her tracks.

Realizing that he had been staring at her a bit too long, he entangled his hand with hers again, bringing her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss on the smooth metal. She had been observing him too, her eyes flickering all over his face and then flashing downwards when their gaze met. He rubbed a thumb along her cheekbone, "Cinder," he said slowly, "I know I was surprised when you told me that you were Selene, but I want you to know that I'm really glad that it's you." She looked up, brown eyes open and inviting. His thumb drifted to her jaw, gently outlining the slope. "If anybody can do this; if anybody can overthrow Levana, it's you."

"Not me." she said softly. "Us. I brought you here for a reason, remember?"

"Us." he said, turning the words inside his head. Something coursed through his veins, a conviction so strong that for a moment he believed that anything was possible, like they could actually pull this off, like they could actually succeed. "Us." he repeated again, "I like that thought."

She smiled, large and toothy and real. "Me too."

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**Hope you liked it. Chapter two will be uploaded in the next couple of days :) Review please!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys, I'm back with chapter 2! The response from the first chapter was amazing and I want to thank everyone who took time to review, favorite and follow. You guys are the best! Cresswell was definitely harder to write than Kaider and I think both Thorne and Cress feel a little OC but oh well. I hope you like it anyway :)**

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"Captain Thorne," Darla spoke over the speakers, "Cinder wants you to wake up."

Thorne groaned, rolling around in his small bed before he even bothered to open his eyes. He was met with the metal slats of the bunk bed above him and he closed his eyes again, deciding to take five more minutes. He tugged his sheets higher over his torso before his eyes popped back open. And saw the metal slats. Actually saw them. He sat up, looking around the room with wide eyes. He could _see_.

A delirious laugh escaped his throat and one of his hands traveled to his face, feeling his eyes as if making sure that he could actually see and this wasn't just a dream. Everything was sharp and clear; he could make out every inch of the room, he could see every wrinkle on his sheets; he could see every star twinkling at him through the small circular window on the opposite wall. His breath caught in his throat and for a moment he sat right where he was, observing the room around him in silent wonder, like it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

His sight had been slowly getting better as the week progressed but everything had still been large blobs of color when he had went to bed some hours before. He didn't know what had prompted this miraculous change of speed in his recovery but hey, he wasn't complaining. He experienced a strange sense of vertigo as he stood up; he had gotten used to walking without relying on his sight and the sensation of seeing again was simultaneously luxurious and dizzying. He knew that no matter what happened in his life next, he would never take any of his senses for granted ever again.

He got over the vertigo relatively fast in the wake of the excitement that was suddenly crawling up his spine and he couldn't wait to inform the rest of the crew. Especially one person in particular.

"Cress!" he hollered as he stumbled out of the room. "Cress!"

He made it all the way to the cockpit and stared dumbly and wondrously at the view of the Earth before him for a few moments before a small figure came rushing through the door, short hair flailing about, breath caught in trepidation, "Captain! You scared me for a moment! Is everything alright?"

He turned around to face her and actually laughed when he saw her, rushing towards her and swooping her into his arms in his sudden elation. She emitted a surprised squeak and clung to his shoulder as he spun her around gleefully. "My eyesight is back, Cress! I can see again!"

She looked up at him in surprise as he finally put her back on the ground, "Really?" she asked, her hands still on his shoulders. "You're not just seeing colored blobs anymore?"

"No," he grinned, "I can see perfectly. I can everything Cress. I don't know how it happened, I just woke up and I could _see_ again_._"

Still a little skeptical, she held up a hand in front of his eyes, opening up three fingers. "How many are these?"

He rolled his eyes, "Honestly, Cress." She didn't lower her hand and he sighed deeply before he said, "Three."

She beamed up at him and he slowly felt his delirious smile returning back to his face.

It was perhaps at that time that Cress realized that he could probably see her and she suddenly looked a little self-conscious, hands unconsciously reaching up to smoothen her hair. It was also at that point that Thorne realized that he could_ see_ again and he had never actually seen Cress with his eyes before, had he?

He took a moment to look at her, really look at her. He had seen her briefly when he had come to her satellite to pick her up –moments before both of them had crashed into the Sahara- and he remembered what she had looked like pretty accurately. But during all the time that had passed, the picture of her in his mind had slightly distorted and he realized that she looked a little different from how he had been imagining her all along. A lot different actually. Was it him or had she really changed so much in such a small amount of time?

She was small, as he had known, but looking at her, he realized that she barely even reached his shoulders. Her short hair were the color of straw, ending neatly just below her jaw and her eyes were wide and blue and unblinking. Her face was heart-shaped and her nose was little and perfect and her lips were really nice, with a thinner upper lip and a slightly thicker lower one. Her skin retained the slightest hue of the tan that they had both acquired during their trek through the Sahara, but Thorne had already lost focus because his concentration hadn't really moved on from her really nice lips.

He gulped inconspicuously and continued his silent inspection at length. There was the slightest dusting of freckles on her nose and he wanted to touch them but when he raised a hand, he took a lock of her hair in his hands instead, gently tugging on the straw-spun strands. "This used to be longer." he said.

She bit her lip, smiling slightly, "You were the one that chopped it all off, remember?"

It was all smooth and even from the ends, "I'm sure my barber skills aren't that good."

She smiled wider, "That's Iko's work, not yours."

He grinned and then he was observing her again, because how could he not? He had first seen her in a dress, a weatherworn dull thing but now she wore one of the extra military uniforms that he had stacked in the Rampion. It looked ridiculous on her, hanging limply from her small frame. Her sleeves and the bottom of her pants were rolled up and she wore a belt around her waist to the give the uniform some semblance of shape. The uniform was probably designed for someone of Wolf's size and she looked absolutely adorable in it.

Observing her so acutely, he felt a small sudden loss. For all the times she could have smiled at him without him even knowing. For all the times, he could've met her gaze instead of staring back at her blankly. For the one moment on the rooftop of the royal palace where he could've seen her lips before he had tasted them, where he could've read every emotion in her eyes that was surely replicated on his face.

"Captain…" she murmured and he realized that he had been staring at her for a moment too long. "What are you doing?"

His hand had drifted away from her hair and now hovered somewhere near her elbow. "I'm looking at you." he said, not breaking his gaze, "I've never really seen you before, have I?"

"Don't be ridiculous." she said, eyes flickering to the ground and back again when he still didn't break his probably too intense stare. "You saw me when you came to my satellite. Before Mistress threw us off orbit."

"But not really." And he really hadn't. He had just seen a squeaky girl with obscene amounts of hair. He hadn't seen Cress. He hadn't seen his Cress.

"Stop looking at me like that." she muttered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears.

"I have a lot of looking to make up for." he said, eyes straying from her eyebrows to her small dainty hands. "In fact, I could stare at you all day and still be short on the looking."

She blushed at his words and he noticed how it wasn't only her cheeks that seemed flushed but her ears and her neck too. Already, he was learning things about her that he had never even considered before. Like how her hands would look completely dwarfed if he were to hold them. How her fingers were almost half the size of his. Slowly, he took one of her hands, intertwining their fingers one by one, and he saw her eyes dart to their hands and back to his face and back again. "Captain…" she said again, her blue eyes wide with a hint of nervousness. "I have to tell you something."

His heart suddenly leapt to his throat, thinking back to the conversation they had had after their escapade through the royal palace. He tugged at her hand, "Go on."

"I'm so happy that you got your sight back." she admitted. "But I'm a little sad too. I'm afraid, you won't need me as much anymore."

He was surprised at how honest she sounded. After what they had gone through together, he was pretty sure he would still need her when he was eighty and wilting away on a rocking chair. If he didn't die during the next few days, that is. "Cress," he said, frowning at her. He tightened his hold on her hands, telling her that he very much meant the words he spoke next. "I still need you." He looked straight into her eyes, so closely that he could see the specks of grey in her blue irises. She suddenly looked a little fazed, never having met his gaze before. "I don't think I'll ever stop needing you."

She looked up at him through translucent eyelashes. "Really?"

"Really." he said. "And I guess I have something to tell you too."

"What?" she asked. He detected a small hitch of anticipation in her breath. Maybe she was thinking back to their earlier conversation too.

He tugged at her hands, "You're really pretty, Cress." he confessed. "I don't think I've ever noticed it before."

She broke into the largest smile he had ever seen. Or the largest one he had seen in the last five minutes. "And that has nothing to do with the fact that you've been blind as long as I've known you?"

He grinned, "Absolutely nothing."

She bit her lip, trying to contain the smile on her lips that seemed to want only to spread wider. "At least now we have our pilot back. I don't think Cinder can handle another space disaster."

He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, "Piloting." he said, "Yeah, I can do that."

She gave him a look that was a little fond and a lot disbelieving. It appeared as if Cinder had told her all about his above average piloting skills but he couldn't find it in himself to care. It was a little disconcerting, really, to suddenly have a conversation with her in which he could actually see her, see the smile playing on her lips, see the emotion fidgeting about her face. During the last few weeks, she had been there with him almost every second but because of his impaired vision, he felt like he had been denied full access to her. And now, all of a sudden, the curtain had been lifted and he could place a face to all the memories of her inside his head.

He walked over to the pilot's seat and sat down, dragging her along with him. She took a seat on the co-pilot's chair, a place he had come to associate as hers entirely. From the large glass that spammed several feet in front of them, he could see the moon, almost below them, illuminated in a perfect crescent. He saw Cress flinch as he eyes swept over the giant orb and almost unconsciously he squeezed her hand; he had almost forgotten that he was holding it in the first place.

"I can't believe I'm going back to Luna." she said distractedly, her eyes trained on the moon.

"Me neither." he said, leaning back against his chair and putting up his feet on the control panel in front of him. "Never been a big fan of the huge rock in the sky myself."

The corner of her lips twitched. "I suppose not many Earthens would be."

He grinned, his eyes skirting over to her almost unintentionally every few seconds. He couldn't stop looking at her. "It's not that. I've just never needed glamour to be handsome _or_ persuasive."

"I'm sure you didn't." she said. Her eyes flickered back to the moon and her face turned much more somber. "At least Mistress Sybil won't be there this time….Or any other time for that matter."

He paused, then turned slightly in his chair to face her. "Are you scared? I mean, these people locked you up in a satellite for I don't know how many years." He shuddered. "And Levana gives me the creeps."

"I don't know." she sighed. "A little, I think, a lot less than before but still…"

He swung around their interlocked hands. "Hey, don't worry." he said, "We've got a pretty wicked crew with us. A princess and an emperor and a wolf-human-hybrid-thing."

"And a criminal mastermind." she added.

He grinned. "And a criminal mastermind."

They sat in companionable silence for a while and he reflected back to the conversation they had had after kidnapping emperor Kai. He remembered what she had said_. I'm beginning to think that maybe great, epic romances don't just happen. We have to make them ourselves_. He remembered the feeling of disappointment in his gut when he had heard her. It had almost sounded like she had gotten over whatever she thought she had felt for him and he had just started to realize that her feelings were pretty evenly reciprocated. Now he had no idea where they stood even though her hand was still clasped firmly in his.

He almost smiled when he thought back to the fact that she had professed her love for him after only two days of knowing him, granted the two days had felt more like two months. And he was the only person she had interacted with for an extended period of time for years. But still there was something between them; something that could only be created by surviving multiple live-threating experiences together. Maybe they had become used to relaying on each other so heavily, but he was pretty sure that just being in someone else's presence had never felt so natural. At least it never had to Thorne.

"Captain," she said. He could see a flush rising up her neck, "you're staring at me again."

"Cress." he said, choosing to ignore her observation. Her profile looked a little picturesque against the background of a thousand twinkling stars and with his miraculously restored vision, he felt like he could stare at her forever. "Remember when you said that great, epic romances just don't happen? That we have to make them ourselves?"

She turned to face him fully, looking surprised and thrilled and apprehensive.

"I think I'm ready to make ours."

He saw the shock flashing across her face and then the absolute delight, before he was pulling her onto his lap and kissing her. For a moment, she was too stunned to respond but then her lips began to move against his and she returned the kiss with equal fervor. She was entirely too small in his arms but that just made it easier for him to hold her, keep a hand pressed against her cheek, slowly entangle the other into her short cropped hair. She murmured something against his lips but it was lost to the loud thudding of his heart and the feel of her hands snaking around his neck and the fact that he was kissing her when he had spent the majority of the past weeks trying to convince himself that he wasn't mushy enough to actually fall for someone.

He was grinning before they broke apart and she looked up to him, tried to suppress her rapidly widening smile and buried her face in his neck when she was unsuccessful. "Captain…." she sighed.

"This was definitely better than the first time." he said, tugging on a lock of her hair. "Since we're not dying and all."

"Definitely better." she mumbled into his skin, her hair grazing his cheek softly.

He tilted her head back up, kissed her again and repeated, "Definitely."

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**On the side note, I'm halfway through Fairest and THIS WAS NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING. Marissa, you evil human being you. If you wanna fangirl with me or talk to me about Fairest don't hesitate to PM! Or hit me up on tumblr! My url is _asemblanceofart_ (:**

**Thank you for reading! I'll be done with Wolflet in a couple of days :))))**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello guys! Back with the last chapter, starring Wolflet! Thank you so much for all the reviews, favorites and follows. They mean a lot to me :) I hope this helps fill up the void that Fairest left in your hearts. **

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Wolf entered the room softly, making sure to be quiet as to not wake her. But the lights were already on and he found her reclining on her bed, eating some kind of soup out of the one of the only three bowls that the crew of the Rampion possessed. His body seemed to slump in relaxation when he saw her again. Sometime during the past few hours in which she had been resting, he had become convinced that he would wake up to find her gone and the nightmare of the past few weeks would start all over again. They had rescued her only the past night, with the help of Princess Winter herself, and with everything that had been going on, he just wanted to be alone with her. Preferably, for an extended period of time.

"Hey." she grinned tiredly as he walked up to her and sat down on the space beside her legs. Almost on instinct he took her hand interlacing their fingers together. His chest seemed to lighten. She was here. She was safe.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, voice heavy with barely repressed concern.

She rolled her eyes fondly, "I'm fine, honestly. Stop worrying."

She tightened her grip on his hand and he took some time to observe her. She looked better than yesterday when he had half-supported, half-carried her into the Rampion, with the rest of the crew trailing them and releasing a collective breath of relief when they couldn't spot a single lunar guard trailing them to the ship. She had cleaned up, traded her clothes for a fresh pair of military uniform –something the Rampion seemed to have an endless supply off- and had taken a much-needed hot shower. But she still didn't look like the Scarlet that had been taken away from him.

Her face was more gaunt, skin pale and awash with shadows that circled her eyes and unnaturally highlighted her cheekbones. Her hair seemed to have lost some volume and fell limply over her shoulders in ragged waves as opposed to her characteristic curls. She looked starved, like she had lost too many pounds in too small a time. Wolf's eyes travelled to her hand last, which he had bandaged up last night, to the glaringly empty space where her pinkie finger should've been. Something inside his chest seized up from a mixture of rage and guilt and remorse.

She finished up the last of her food, deposited the empty bowl on floor besides the bed and scooted towards the wall to make space for him in the small bunk bed. She patted the empty space beside her but he really didn't need the invitation. He took his place next to her and they seemed to mold into each other to fit in the small space, her cocooned into his side and him with an arm draped around her shoulder. He released a small sigh before he buried his face into her hair and inhaled the smell of fresh soap. She was here. She was okay.

"I was so worried." He whispered in a pained breath. "I was so worried that I'd get to you and it would be too late. Every day I worried that it was going to be too late."

She twisted in his arms to face his fully, placing her chin on his chest and looking up at him. "You weren't too late." she said, "You got there just in time."

"But what if I hadn't?" he muttered. His hand drifted up to her cheek, lightly brushing her freckle-dusted skin.

"I was okay, Wolf." she sighed. "After they interrogated me, they just threw me in a cage and forgot all about me. It was just a matter of waiting it out until you came to get me."

Wolf winced; he had extracted her out of the said cage himself and it was a detail from the rescue mission that he would have liked to forget. "You were in a _cage_, Scarlet." he said, like she didn't understand the gravity of the offense committed against her. He grabbed her other hand, the one with the missing finger and gently rubbed his thumb over the stump where her finger should've been. "And they didn't just interrogate you; they _tortured_ you. I can't just forget that."

"You can." she said, taking her hand from him and wrapping her arms around his neck instead. "And you will. Because I would like to forget about it too."

He let out a noise of protest but he didn't express his disproval out loud. If she wanted to forget the whole ordeal, he would do anything to help her.

"Besides," she said, a smile creeping up her lips, "with a war looming over our heads, we don't have time to fulfill our personal vendettas. It's not that I don't want to see Levana rot in hell, but Cinder will probably take care of that."

Wolf smiled, something he hadn't done since she had been kidnapped. And then he frowned, "I'm afraid, I haven't been terribly nice to her…or the rest of the crew." He rubbed the back of his neck a bit sheepishly, "I kind of lost it after I woke up and you weren't there."

A hint of a smile played on her lips, a precedent of a larger one but she frowned and it slipped away. "Woke up? You were knocked out?"

Wolf opened his mouth to answer but then hesitated. He didn't want to tell Scarlet that he had been shot because he knew it would hurt her. But he had also promised himself long ago that he would never lie to her again. "I was shot." he said. Seeing the expression transform on her face, he continued quickly, "But Cinder managed to take me to the doctor in time, the one who helped her escape prison? He patched me up. I'm fine now."

Scarlet was already sitting up, "You were shot!" she exclaimed, aghast and angry, hands unwinding from his neck and travelling to his chest instead. "You could've died and you were worrying about me rotting in a cage!"

"I wouldn't have died." he said, even though there had been a pretty big chance that he might have. "I've had worse."

She didn't look like she believed him but the she removed her hands from his chest, leaving them hovering in the air between them, "Where…where did you get hit?"

He took one of her hands and placed it on the spot on his chest that was still covered with a cotton wad held in place by a small bandage. He had had to redo the stitches by hand after the fight in the palace rooftop and the spot still hurt even though he would never express his discomfort to Scarlet. And what he said was partially true; he _had_ taken worse. He released her hand but she didn't remove it from his chest, staring at the small lump in his shirt like she could burn holes in it. Her breath hitched as she traced her thumb over his shirt. "Does it hurt?"

He shook his head, "It hurt for a while but it's mostly gone now." He gave her a wry smile, "Don't you think I should be the one doing the worrying over here?"

She took her hand off his chest and swatted him instead. "No, you shouldn't be." She directed her large brown eyes at him in a slightly hostile stare and muttered, "I can't believe you got yourself shot."

"It's just another scar, Scarlet." he said, "Really."

Her eyes continued to bore holes in his head before she sighed deeply and finally decided to let it go. She fell back to her side and said, "What was that about not being nice to the crew?"

He smiled and then thought back to the past few weeks he had spent brooding and just generally being impatient and miserable. He wasn't very proud of it, but at that time, all he could think about was how he wasn't even sure whether she was alive or not. And that had put a damper on things, to say the least. "I didn't react very well when Cinder told me they took you. I upturned a table, I think." he frowned when the day came back to him with more clarity. "And then the doctor drugged me. It didn't work very well because I was still pretty upset when I came to." He paused a little. "I think Cress is still a little afraid of me."

"Why?" she said, reassuming her position in his arms.

He winced. "I didn't know who she was and I panicked and….accidentally held her in a chokehold?"

To his surprise, she let out a snort of laughter. "Really? The poor girl. You must have scarred her for life."

"She spends most of her time around Thorne." Wolf said, "She's already scarred for life."

Scarlet grinned and settled deeper into his side, letting out a small hum of contentment. For a moment they both lay in silence and he took a strand of her blindingly red hair, twirling it absently around his finger. His chest felt so light, he was pretty sure that he would be happy to stay here with her forever. Their mission suddenly seemed so far away, in almost another galaxy. He knew they would probably have to dive right back into extremely perilous situations in the very near future but right now, he was very content to lay with her and not think about it.

"Princess Winter came to see me once or twice when I was in the cage." Scarlet said, "And she had a wolf with her, a real one, all flesh and blood. I didn't know what her deal was…but the wolf, it made me think of you. It was comforting."

Wolf looked down at her, heartened by her words and dropped his lips against her forehead. Then he sighed a little forlornly; it was apparent that he wasn't very good at forgetting what she had gone through just yet. "I wish I could've done something. Every time we face a thaumaturge, I'm all but useless."

"I know the feeling." She shuddered in his arms. "But at least Sybil Mira is dead. I can't say I'm sorry to see her go."

"Me neither." he agreed. "You should've seen what Cinder did to her. It was nothing short of what she deserved."

Scarlet let out a small noise of agreement before her eyes sparkled as she suddenly thought of something, "I can't believe you guys kidnapped the emperor." she said, voice highlighted with a hint of wonder, "I wished I could've been there to see that. Where is he anyway? His Majesty?"

Wolf's lips quirked at a corner, "He and Cinder seem particularly fond of the engine room."

Scarlet laughed, eyes crinkling from the corners, chapped lips widening almost painfully. Stars, Wolf had missed her laugh. "Well that's not something I would've anticipated. But good for them, I guess."

"Mm-hmm."

She turned her neck to look at him, fingers rising to trail silently through his hair. It had gotten longer through the past few weeks and Iko had offered to give him a haircut the day before but he had declined the offer. The only person holding a scissor to his head would be himself. And Scarlet maybe. Wolf sucked in a surprised breath when he felt her lips against his neck, his heart suddenly hammering inside his chest. "I've missed you." she sighed against his skin.

His arm that had been loosely slung around her wrist tightened its grip and he shifted slightly to face her fully, his other arm winding across her stomach to encase her properly. Her lips left the skin of his neck and touched his jaw instead, hovering slightly, a mere shadow of a kiss. "I missed you so much." she whispered again, eyes closed, red eyelashes fanning across her pale cheeks.

Her breath on his skin was tantalizing, almost irresistible. He remembered their second night together, when he had saved her from sliding down the train and it had taken all his willpower to not kiss her right there and then. He had been a fool to think that he could ever resist her, that he could have ever stop himself from falling completely and utterly in love with her. He tilted his face downwards, capturing her lips in a soft and sweet kiss. "I missed you too." he murmured. Oh, she had no idea.

Their kiss accelerated all too soon, as all their kisses tended to. Her hand twisting in his hair, his arms tightening around her waist. Pretty soon, she was on his lap, their chests heaving together as they struggled to breathe in between kisses. He would never get tired of her, he decided. Never get tired of how she felt, how she opened him up right at the seams, how she managed to make him feel when he had spent his whole life not knowing how to.

"Scarlet…" he whispered, voice raw. His hand trailed up her side, reached the back of her neck. They broke apart but kept their foreheads pressed together. "Never leave me again."

"I won't." she promised, kissing his lips and his jaw and the space just right of his ear. "Never again."

"I mean it." he said, "You don't know what it did to me Scarlet, you not being there. You really don't know what it did to me."

She smiled against his lips, "I think I have a pretty good idea." One of her hands trailed down his cheek, coming to rest at his jaw, her thumb moving lightly against the scruffy surface. "But let's not do that again."

He melted under her fingertips and somewhere through the delirious fog in his brain, he found himself repeating her words. "Never again."

* * *

**And finished! I hope Wolflet reunites soon in Winter because I have had enough of the dark miserable Wolf. Want the not-broken Wolf back and soon! And again, if you wanna fangirl with me about tlc, I'm always available :) **

**Have a lovely day! :* :***


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